Malcolm X, African American activist, born

Related Lessons

Malcolm X argued that America was too racist in its institutions and people to offer hope to blacks. In contrast with Malcolm X's black separatism, Martin Luther King, Jr. offered what he considered "the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest" as a means of building an integrated community of blacks and whites in America. This lesson will contrast the respective aims and means of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. to evaluate the possibilities for black American progress in the 1960s.

Lorraine Hansberry, American playwright, is born

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The play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry, is used as a focal point for discussion of "The American Dream" as students explore how the social, educational, economical and political climate of the 1950s affected African Americans' quest for the good life in the suburbs.

President John Quincy Adams signs protective tariff (“tariff of abominations”)

Related Lessons

Americans affirmed their independence with the ringing declaration that “all men are created equal.” But some of them owned African slaves, and were unwilling to give them up as they formed new federal and state governments. So “to form a more perfect union” in 1787, certain compromises were made in the Constitution regarding slavery. This settled the slavery controversy for the first few decades of the American republic, but this situation changed with the application of Missouri for statehood in 1819.